A teenager's urination into a sewage pond makes it turn purple. Via a rare medical drug this leads to discovering the headless corps in 12 more hacked-up pieces of SciFi cult author Jared Addison (25), who has a 'sexier' impersonator, C. D. Howard, hired by editor Gary Tushman. The Jefferson is working in another gifted intern, Wendell Bray. Ralph, Jared's fellow germ phobia therapy patient with professor Jim Amerian, volunteers a confession based on a crazy compulsion. Meanwhile Booth has back trouble. Sweets proves an excellent third investigation partner and team confident. Hodges visits Zack in psych ward and leaves the case file with him, which inspires more then brilliant insight.

Spoilers

The synopsis below may give away important plot points.

Synopsis

A pair of teenagers drinks Big Gulps in an abandoned warehouse. They've just finished "doing it" -- ah, young love! -- and the not-so-manly man retires to a standing pool outside to relieve himself. His urine turns the water purple. Gross. Suddenly, an arm surfaces. And a leg. And a torso. Date OVER.

Meanwhile, Lance sits across the table from an incarcerated Zack. "You know, you'll only be released from this psychiatric institution if we cure you of your delusion," Lance says.

"I was wrong -- not delusional," Zack insists.

Booth and Brennan arrive at the warehouse. Twelve body parts, but no head. Also: a cell phone.

Back at the lab, Hodgins points that the water turned purple because of a "bottom-growing algae." New guy Wendell, Brennan's prize grad student, notices that the tips of the victims fingers had been burned. He also had special-ordered shoes.

"The victim was killed, chopped up and then dropped," Brennan says.

Booth, in the meantime, pulls up a name on his computer based on the victim's special-order shoes: Jared Addison. "I'm guessing that's our victim," he says.

Booth and Brennan visit Jared's mother. She confirms that Jared had special ordered his shoes. "It would be helpful if we could see your son's room," Brennan says. Jared's room is ultra-neat and very much the space of a little boy in a 25-year-old man's body (who still lives with his mother). We also discover that he was a science-fiction author. Mom didn't report her son missing because Jared had checked into a hotel to finish his latest opus.

Back at the lab, Hodgins discovers a tiny insect egg, which he must hatch in order to identify. It could provide a clue as to where the victim was killed. Camille finds that funny. Hodgins doesn't find it funny that Camille finds that funny. Camille, Hodgins' boss, gives him an attitude warning.

"If you want to make a change, you make a change," Hodgins says. "Otherwise, you let me do my job."

The man is clearly not over Angela or Zack -- and Camille doesn't like it one bit.

Lance, in the meantime, has been brought in to examine Jared's creepy room. "Everything is perfectly aligned," Lance observes. Obsessive compulsive. What disrupted poor Jared's world? And did it ultimately lead to his death? Lance guesses sex, prompting Booth to suggest looking for "masturbatory aids" in the man's shoes. Sure enough, Lance finds a suggestive photograph of a woman signed "Kelly."

"Do all boys keep their masturbatory aids in their shoes?" Brennan wonders. Good question, but it goes ignored by the men. They're too busy staring at the photograph, which shows a much older woman in a bubble bath. Young Jared liked them mature, it seems.

Kelly is brought in for questioning. The woman is at least 20 years older than the victim. "I loved Jared," she says. "The age difference bothers you? The fact is that Jared wanted to marry me."

Then she tells Booth that Jared was indeed at a hotel, but not to finish his novel. The victim was attending a "behavior modification" conference. Booth's raised eyebrows would indicate that this is interesting news indeed.

Wendell, meanwhile, continues to impress. He notices a "boxer's fracture" on the victim -- from punching something without keeping the wrist straight. The victim slugged someone before he died. Do we have another Zack on our hands (minus the working-for-a-serial-killer angle, of course)?

Speak of the little devil, Zack gets a visit from Hodgins. "We're going to get you out of here someday, Zack," Hodgins says. "And you can be king again." Hodgins decides to leave the most recent case file with his young, incarcerated friend. Perhaps Zack can find something that the team missed.

Booth and Brennan, in the meantime, have arrived at the behavior modification conference. They interview the group leader, who explains that Jared was germ phobic and used to hold a candle under his fingertips after shaking hands (hence, the burnt fingertips). Just then, another germ phobe named Ralph enters the room.

Back at the lab, Lance interrogates Ralph and quickly discovers that the man did NOT kill Jared. How does he know? "The fact is, if I don't eat by exactly 8:14 a.m. according to this watch, the person nearest to me dies," Ralph explains. But the man does provide one helpful hint: Jared left the session early to go to a nearby coffee bar.

Booth and Brennan arrive at said coffee bar. The former shows the clerk a picture of Jared. Turns out the germ-adverse victim had visited the bar many times -- and always made the clerk wash and rewash his hands. But not the last time. The last time Jared even shook the clerk's hand. "He was like a different guy," the clerk says.

Behavior modification, it seems, was working, after all.

Back at the lab, Angela reveals the contents of the victim's cell phone. He called the same number at the same time every day. But who? Camille recognizes the name on the voice mail. "Forward Retro is the publisher who dropped Jared Addison after his second book -- the one who never wanted to talk to him again," she says.

Booth and Brennan question the publisher from Forward Retro. "I had to hire a guy to pretend to be Jared," the publisher says. Turns out Jared couldn't press the flesh with fans because of his fear of germs. The rub: the fake author eventually began writing his own stuff and it was good. So the publisher ultimately chose this stand in to replace Jared entirely.

Seems reasonable enough. But wait! The publisher is also missing a tooth. "Jared came into my office and told me he was cured of his OCD," the publisher says. "I told him I wasn't interested and then he clapped me one." But here's the twist: the bare-knuckled punch convinced the publisher that Jared really was cured. He rehired Jared, after all.

Back at the lab, Hodgins' egg is hatching. "This fly might tell us where Jared Addison was murdered," he says. The newborn turns out to be a white fly. And Jared's girlfriend's son happens to run a nursery where white flies could live quite comfortably.

Hodgins, Booth and Brennan pay this nursery a visit. "Jared was here," the son says. "He wanted my permission to marry mom ... I told him he should forget about it and try to be normal." Brennan, meanwhile, discovers white flies swarming a certain shovel. She does a quick test. Yup, blood on the shovel. "I'm going to have to ask you to close up shop," Booth says. "We have some questions wed like to ask you."

Back at the lab, however, Camille puts a quick stop to any interrogation. "It wasn't blood," she says. "On the shovel. It wasn't blood." Well, OK, what was it? A potato compound actually. Darn potatoes messed up Brennan's test.

Suddenly, Zack enters. Everyone is shocked, but happy to see their old friend. Booth rightly wonders how Zack got out of the ward, but he is silenced when the noted brainaic says he knows "where to find the victim's head."

Moments later, Zack examines a photograph of Jared's room. "Everything is the room is organized in sets of 12," he explains. "Books, CDs, everything. It's always 12." But wait: everything in the garden and yard is organized in twelves as well. Jared didn't do the gardening. Jared Addison also contains 12 letters. Jared didn't name himself.

The only logical conclusion: Mom was OCD, too. Lance enters.

"He was overcoming his disorder," Lance says. "Jared Addison was ready to take control of his professional life. He found love and was ready to leave his house. It wasn't just his patterns he was destroying. It was her's."

"Everything comes in twelves," Zack finished. "Except this." He points at a bird bath in the middle of the Addison back yard. One crime solved. How about another ? For example, how in the world did Zack get out of the shrink clink? Easy. He swiped the magnetic strip on Lance's card with the one on his "loony bin library card." Smart guy, that Zack.

Booth and Brennan go to the Addison house. Sure enough, they find Jared's head buried underneath the bird bath. Jared's mother is led away.

Lance, meanwhile, has brought Zack back to the hospital. Before going inside, Zack drops a bomb: He never actually plunged the knife into his victim. Someone else did -- and the Master killed that person. Zack, it seems, could be innocent -- even though he confessed to the murder.

"But I would've done it," he says. "If the Master had asked, I would've done it."

"You don't know that," Lance says.

Zack makes Lance swear he will not say anything as it might send Zack to a real prison as an accessory to murder. Lance reluctantly agrees. But, honestly, how long can he keep this juicy secret? Stay tuned.